


No Water Between El Paso and Omaha

by alephthirteen



Series: Apostates and Usurpers [2]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Western, And the Horse You Rode in On..., Card Sharks, F/F, F/M, Grabby Cowhands, Having Enough Food for Winter, It's the Wild West!, Morally Grey Kara, Morally Grey Lena, Reincarnation, Rotgut Whiskey, Sassy Madams, Sometimes a Family is Three People in Love Reincarnating Over and Over, Tumbleweeds, Unflappable Bartender, powers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:41:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23370355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alephthirteen/pseuds/alephthirteen
Summary: The door swings open.  In walks a tall, thin-framed fellow with a pair of holsters and a buffalo gun strapped on their back.  Truth be told, Hank had never seen anyone thatslimwith a star on their chest.  All brass and shiny as you please.US Marshall, if he remembers..."Looking for work?" Hank asks.The stranger lowers the rag that covered their mouth from the vicious, blowing dust.  Eyes the color of bourbon, smooth skin, a well-shaven face and of all the damn things, painted lips."Looking for a man goes by Non," she calls out.
Series: Apostates and Usurpers [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1437940
Kudos: 10





	No Water Between El Paso and Omaha

**Author's Note:**

> It is part of the reincarnation based "Apostates and Usurpers" series. Chapters will be added to each story at different points.
> 
> Set in a post-Civil War United States, roughly 1880. A time when only scraps of the Wild West are fully civilized. The Oregon Trail ended forty years ago and the railroad went coast-to-coast through fifteen years ago but it ain't civilized out here, not by a mile.
> 
> * * *
> 
> This is a sort of love letter to the now-dying towns in the Great Plains back when the work of the cattle boom rested on ex-Confederate cowboys, Mexican rancheros, buffalo soldiers, madams, whores, lawmen, frontier doctors, and all the people in between who made money off of them.
> 
> Today, these downs are collapsing but once upon a time, they were everything to a rapidly growing country. 

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where the townfolk learn to take Alex seriously, Miss Grant has no time for uselss men, there were bookworms on the prairie too, a little consistency goes a long way, and Alex takes after both parents.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Until further notice, all animals involved will be named after canonical pets of Superman and Supergirl, in TV and Comics canon.

* * *

This is a sort of love letter to the now-dying towns in the Great Plains back when the work of the cattle boom rested on ex-Confederate cowboys, Mexican rancheros, buffalo soldiers, farmers, schoolmarms, shopkeeps, madams, whores, lawmen, frontier doctors, and all the people in between who made money off of them.  
  
Today, these downs are collapsing but once upon a time, they were _everything_ to a rapidly growing country. I would rather remember them in the most important **then** , when they were pivotal to the country, rather than their bitter, reactionary, angry **now**.

Gold rushes, boomtowns, cattle trails, and the Pony Express were temporary. So were most of the towns they served. Better solutions to all arose and they died out.

* * *

**Alex - Hastings, Nebraska**

"Shh," Alex breathes. "Easy, Comet."

The black mare knickers uneasily. The damn beast must know it's Sunday and that she shouldn't have to work on a Sunday.

"We're going to town today, huh? Get you an apple, how 'bout that?"

Her father leans on the fencepost by the gate, a little less giant than Alex remembers.

"Jeremiah!" comes a bellow from the house. "Jeremiah Aaron Danvers!"

He sighs.

"Get. I'll deal with your mother."

"My money's on her," Alex replies.

"Mine too. You remember the job?"

Alex nods.

"Ride straight to church, patch up preacher Colville. Ride straight back."

He shakes his head.

"You patch up Colville, get him in a bed and then you find the man who shot Colville, you hear me? Find him, just like I taught you. Your mom'll take care of Colville while you're gone."

He slings a big rucksack up onto her shoulder. It's heavy and full of metal. Alex peeks inside. These are her father's best guns. All of them. Glinting on one of the holsters is a brass badge.  
  
Deputy Marshall. It's not tin, either.

_How much did he have to slip somebody to get that? One of his friends from the war, maybe._

"You sure, dad? What'll you and mom do to keep safe?"

"We'll manage. This farm's a good ways out. No one's riding this far to get in trouble. Besides, when old man Snapper asked what you wanted for Christmas, you said a badge."

Alex rolls her eyes.

"I won't tell nobody. And like you always said. If they offer you bacon..."

"Swear at 'em and take the whiskey. Count the days and you'll know the sabbath."

"That's my girl."

=====

As she rides, Alex checks each weapon. Enough to equip a posse of a dozen men, if she was stingy with bullets. For every weapon, a second, two fat bags of parts, rags and grease and oiled leather to wrap it in when it rains.

Two pair of Colt Peacemakers, long-barreled and well-greased. Alex drops the shinier set into the holsters, making sure the left one is higher. She'll grab it first. 

A Winchester bolt-action that her father once put down a five-man raid with before the second man drew his piece. 

Unlikeliest of all is the monster Sharps rifle in a sling that barely fits on her back. She supposes it's for hunting. She can't imagine when she'd want to shoot a man from half a mile. That one, he had the whole thing reworked in cast metal. Cost him a fortune and made sure the blacksmith's kid sister could go to school.

Every piece of wood has been replaced with metal cast by Jimmy Olsen, the blacksmith. These must weigh twice what ordinary Colts would, maybe more. Half a dozen thick coats of lacquer keep dust away and her father had Jimmy give him the moulds and show him how to smelt in the kiln in the barn. Jeremiah doesn't' believe in being unable to do things for himself. Keeps spare saws, half a dozen shovels, two spare blades for the plow. Buckets of spare parts for hinges and gates and bails of spare barbed wire. Took notes of where he can cut down trees for the lumber to rebuild their little house.

He knows that sometimes, a Jew can't just go into town and buy things. Any winter can be a hard winter.

The warm bread in the bottom of the bag and the elegantly stitched calfskin pads for each stock suggest that her mother had a hand in this too, for all her hollering to the contrary.

* * *

 **Preacher Thomas Colville**

The Lord said not to be afraid of dying. The good book isn't so complicated if you read it with a clear head.

What he failed to mention was the part where you piss yourself in fear beforehand.

_The last words I have and I leave the congregation with that?_

"Strange," he coughs. "Think I might be needin' a preacher."

The girl clasping his hand -- Kelly -- is the blacksmith's sister. He heard the mutterin' about that but none of the upstanding citizens in their clean clothes and their Sunday bests rushed to his side, except for the scrawny, barefoot negro girl with soot from her brother's bellows on her dress. Then again, the girl did jimmy the back door open once when she was scared and wanted to pray in the middle of the night.

James Olsen is two paces back, because brave as he is, he's not stupid. He gets too close and some damn fool will accuse him of murder, or crowding his wife, or somesuch.

"Good," Kelly sniffs. "You be silly. Means you're going to the Lord. No silliness in Hell."

"Suppose not."

"Where is this doctor?" Miss Grant sniffs.

"On her way," James grumbles.

"Her?" 

"Best in the territory," someone mutters.

Grant nods.

"Good."

She is crazy enough to start a newspaper here and to have it push for suffrage, so Thomas can't say he's surprised at that.

The doors to the church bang open.

"Someone tie up my horse!"

It's a woman's voice.

_Thank god, it's Doctor Danvers._

* * *

**Alex**

Alex keeps one hand on the pastor's wrist. His pulse is dropping.

"Who're you? Get away from him!"

"I'm the daughter of the town doctor, she taught me everything she knows and you're in my light," Alex snarls.

The man steps back into the crowd.

_Looks like the bullet missed his heart and I can move it, so his shoulder bone is fine. That's a lot of blood. I need to be sure._

"Knife, I need a knife!"

"You're not a doctor," someone mutters.

"And you're not a very good Christian, standing here doing shit-all!" she shouts back.

The tiny negro girl holding the pastor's hand flinches.

Someone drops some sewing scissors on the floor next to them.

_Nice and sharp. That'll do._

"Kelly, right?"

The girl nods.

"Kelly, I know the pastor's real important to you. So I need your help. I need you to fetch me whiskey, a tub or water, and pliers from your brother's workshop, all right? Can you do that?"

She takes off in a sprint.

Alex spreads the leather roll from her mother's kit and breaks open one of the small jars.

"What'd you do that for?"

_Is this a traveling show or an emergency?_

"That was boiled in spirits and pickled in 'em. That rag is cleaner than anything here. Someone take that rag, keep the pressure on that. Hard pressure," Alex commands. "I'm going to need someone to go for supplies. Someone with a fast horse."

"About time one of these clucking hens took action," Miss Grant snaps, sweeping her gaze across the assembled gentlemen.

"Well?" she shouts. "Fine! What do you need, young lady?"

"Lime, any hard liquor, pitch, bolt of cotton. Well water, two buckets. Torches. Half a dozen candles. Cooking pot."

"Someone make a goddamned fire!" Alex hollers.

=====

Alex pulls on the old riding gloves her mother gave her. She blows out a long breath and plunges her hand into the pot of wax. Hurts but doesn't burn.

"God have mercy," she hisses. "Wish I'd had time to wash instead."

She pulls out the still-dripping wax and plunges her hands into the cold well water for the count of three. What remains is a coat of not quite hard, not quite soft beeswax. She couldn't do needlework this way, but she can handle a knife and pliers.

"All right, hold him down. Kelly, you be ready with that poker in the fire, all right?"

=====

It's sundown when she's got the pastor all stitched up. All around her, the congregation stands, hats in hand. Old Man Snapper is in the corner, snoring. He was kind enough to agree to the transfusion but between his age and his weight, he could only give so much before he passed out.

Alex's legs feel like pincushions after squatting down for hours. She falls back onto the planks in a most unladylike, and most painful, fashion.

"Sorry about the pain, reverend...and the language."

"What language?" he jokes. "I think I passed out."

"Why'd you do all that?" a man near the door asks.

"Ma taught me. She's got a fever, or she'd have come herself. If you've got any spare prayers, she could use them."

The pastor grabs her hand and squeezes it.

"I'll make sure."

"I could tell you knew what you were doing," the man laughs. "I mean all that other stuff. In the war, half the time they just yanked the bullet out. Or sawed the arm off."

Alex sighs.

"Ma likes to read medical books. She has them mailed in, sometimes even from Europe. Drives my Pa mad, how she's always using up candles and writing notes on anything that'll hold still. Once upon a time, this doctor in Vienna realized that the midwives were losing two patients in a hundred and his students, the bonafide doctors, were losing eighteen in a hundred. The difference was the ladies washed their hands. So he made his students start washing their hands. Worked like a charm. Not many people know because he was the laughingstock after that."

"So?"

"During an outbreak, a London doctor named John Snow learned that you can stop cholera by boiling water before drinking it. So that's why I boiled everything that held still and put the pliers in the fire. What works for midwives and drinking water, works for open wounds."

"Doctors wash their hands all the time," Alex reminds them. "All I did differently is making sure that _everything_ I did, start to finish, was clean. Even if it ruined a good pair of gloves."

Most of the church ladies snicker.

"Bullet went into the wall behind the pulpit, not the reverend. But he was bleeding and the bullet wasn't exactly clean. So I had to make sure that plugging the hole didn't make it worse. He'd lost so much that without a transfusion from Old Snapper, he'd have died anyway."

"Knowledge isn't much use unless you put it all together."

Murmurs zip around the room. A few people clap.

Alex smacks her forehead.

"Did someone tie up my horse?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alex's medical knowledge here is _possible_ in universe at the time but not probably _typical_ of frontier doctors. The principles Alex is using were from medical studies in the 1840s-1880s, though some were published but not widely followed.
> 
> I'm taking liberties because:
> 
> A) Eliza Danvers was probably a midwife or something before going to med school. She would know better than to disbelieve in germ theory.  
> B) Danvers girls like to read.  
> C) A single child Jewish girl on the frontier might have more books than friends.  
> D) Eliza and Alex are smart enough to use what they know consistently.


End file.
